CAPE COD BASEBALL: Wareham Gatemen swept from CCBL playoffs

Sunday

Aug 14, 2016 at 6:00 AM

By Rob DucaCorrespondent

WAREHAM – No team in the Cape Cod Baseball League was playing better heading into the playoffs than the Wareham Gatemen. That’s what made their sudden exit so shocking. It was not solely that they were swept by the Bourne Braves; it was how they lost both games with ninth-inning collapses that raised eyebrows.

“Like I said before the playoffs, it doesn’t matter how hot you are, things get ramped up,” Gatemen general manager Andrew Lang said. “You face a little bit better pitching and the games are tighter. But I was surprised by what happened. It was tough to go out that way.”

The Gatemen led 4-3 in the ninth inning of Game 1 with only one out to go, but lost 5-4. Game 2 was even more of a nightmare. They held a 7-2 cushion entering the ninth, but the Braves strung together nine hits in 11 batters to score six runs for a stunning 8-7 triumph.

“I give Bourne a lot of credit. It takes a mentally tough team to do what they did, especially in that second game when they could have packed it in and said we’ll fight it out in Game 3 for winner take-all,” Lang said. “But they didn’t. They had patient at-bats and they got hits, and the momentum carried them to the win.”

The Gatemen finished the regular season in second place in the Western Division with a 25-15-4 record, going 12-2-1 in their final 15 games. They have not won a playoff series since 2012 when they captured the league title.

“I’m proud of what we did this season,” Lang said. “I’m especially proud of the coaching staff and the kids, and how they handled everything. We didn’t have to worry about battling to get into the playoffs. We had our pitching lined up the way we wanted. I’m happy that we went on that winning streak, because it made things a lot easier than it’s been in the past when we were scrambling to make the playoffs. We played hard, and that’s all I worry about. It was an upward progression from last season when we won 17 games. Next year, I hope to improve once again.”

The Gatemen led the league in all three major offensive categories. Cole Freeman, a second baseman from LSU, was the league’s top hitter with a .374 batting average, while BYU’s Colton Shaver, a 6-foot-1, 230-pound first baseman, was first with eight home runs and 29 RBI.

[Leading in home runs] is tough to do at our field,” Lang said. “We play at a real field with real baseball dimensions. It’s tough to get the ball out at our place.”

The Gatemen had a number of outstanding seasons from pitchers. Gunner Leger (Louisiana Lafayette) posted a 0.42 ERA with 29 strikeouts and only one walk in 21 innings. Ryan Wilson (Pepperdine) fanned 20, walked four and had a 0.90 ERA in 20 innings. Nick Sprengel (San Diego) led the team in wins with a 3-0 record, fanning 22 in 20.2 innings.

But statistics did not define the Gatemen’s season, said Lang.

“To me, a successful season is when you talk to the players at the end of the summer and every single one tells you that they feel like they had gotten much better than they were when they first arrived,” he said. “To a man, every single kid came up to me and said that. That means the coaching staff did their job.”